The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell put a charge into things around the hockey world today saying that the Dallas Stars were on the verge of being sold to Canadian oilman Bill Gallacher for $225 million. Not only would the sale involve Gallacher but also a host of other wealthy guys, including one man who’s already kind of a big deal in Dallas.

THN.com has learned Calgary oilman Bill Gallacher, who also owns the Portland Winterhawks of the Western League, heads up a group of investors that has reached an agreement in principle to buy the Dallas Stars for about $225 million. The deal has yet to be signed and either side could back out of it, but it appears the deal will get done soon.

One possible scenario has Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban jumping back into the fray. Cuban was reportedly turned off by the $350 million price being asked by Hicks, but might be enticed by a much lower price. Owning the Stars would effectively give Cuban 100 percent of the revenues generated at the American Airlines Center, one of the busiest venues in North America. Currently co-tenants in the arena, the Mavericks and Stars split arena revenues 50-50, including non-sports events such as concerts.

I don’t know about you, but if Mark Cuban were to get involved at NHL Board of Governors meetings or start showing up to Stars games in full gear while yelling at the referees I’d watch every single Stars home game just waiting to see Cuban lose his mind over everything. Nevermind that Cuban was shot down by the NHL Board of Governors years ago when he tried to get involved in buying the Pittsburgh Penguins, jumping in as a minority buyer would surely pass muster…

That is if this report were totally locked in as being accurate. Take it away Five For Fighting.

I talked to two NHL sources and they say that The Hockey News report that Bill Gallacher has agreed to buy the Stars for $225 million is not accurate.
They say the sale process is ongoing and that Gallacher is a candidate to buy the team, but that they have not gotten as far in the process of agreeing to a price with any buyer. One said the reported price was too low.

More than $225 million for an NHL team? That’s the kind of mad money that only Jim Balsillie would throw around. Of course, if eager-to-sell-and-hide Stars owner Tom Hicks is insistent that he get $350 million for the Stars, he might be waiting around for a long, long time. At some point, if you’re eager to sell, you just have to cut your losses and get out but Hicks is a better businessman than I am for probably a few reasons. Then again, I also don’t own the Texas Rangers and Liverpool Football Club either so what do I know?

For Stars fans, if this initial report from Ken Campbell happens to be not true, the hockey fans in Dallas are going to go ballistic because while grown up men are fighting over hundreds of millions of dollars, the team is in a funky brand of limbo. They’ve got some players they’d like to move for salary reasons (Mike Ribeiro) and at least one restricted free agent they’d like to get locked down under contract (James Neal).

Meanwhile, general manager Joe Nieuwendyk can’t really do anything overly drastic without knowing what he can do financially to appease ownership. Obviously, the sooner things get taken care of it’ll be better for the team but until then, the waiting continues.

Update:

Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News adds this soul-crushing update to the Mark Cuban possibilities.

By the way, Mark Cuban’s e-mail response when I asked if he was indeed interested was: “not me, no idea who.”